First Day

And so it begins! Today is our first day of shooting. Actually, yesterday was supposed to be, but we were having difficulties with our magnet. A note: magnets will be demagnetized more easily than you think and strong magnets do not exist in Athens, Oh. Anyway, we are waiting on a new, stronger magnet to arrive in the mail, but until then our little girl puppet can still be held by our weak one. A little rearranging and a pick up day should put us back on schedule. Let’s hope.

Shooting two scenes today, so it will be interesting to see how long it takes. Today will make a lot of things much clearer in terms of timing and work flow. Using four mini 150 w. fresnels that, I must say, are adorable. Everything is miniature over here. What could be better?

Our puppets now have bodies, clothing, makeup and hair and they look amazing, I could not be any happier with how they turned out. Andrea hand threaded all of the little girls hair into her head and it looks amazing, so check back soon for pictures.

Anyway, wish us luck with day one and I will write more later.

Sam

A Bit on our Puppets

The most extensive work that I have done thus far is on the construction of the puppets. We are using two armatures purchased from animationsupplies.com, that matt constructed. Since then, I have been using a variety of products from Smooth-On to create silicone heads, feet and hands for the Treeshaker and the little girl. It has been quite a process as it requires the sculpting of the original out of clay, making the silicone and plaster mold and then pouring it. Here are some pictures of our puppets so far:

More later,

Sam

Things of the Present

And now, for something of the present, here are a few tests that we have done to warm up. Walking is a real challenge in animation, as anyone who has ever tried it knows. For this project we are using high powered magnets below the surface of our set to anchor our puppet’s feet to the ground, allowing the other foot to lift freely. A good system helps, but capturing the subtleties of a human stride is still very difficult.

Anyway, enjoy!

-Sam

Moco Test

I have started testing the motion control rig and have the tilt axis up and running. Here is a test I shot easing in and out of upward motion and then back down. After months of thinking and work this little video is pretty thrilling. Here is a link to the video on Youtube:

Enjoy

-Matt

First things first.

Hello Everybody, and welcome to our blog. We are now in production of an animated short called Treeshaker’s Worry. We will be using this blog to document and track our progress. We already have a lot of exciting stuff to show (set building, silicone mold casting, armature building, motion control rig, etc…) that we will post as soon as possible. For now, here is a still of a little test we did to try out some walk cycles with our new armature.

The project is an adaptation of a children’s story that my mom, Andrea Levy (andrealevy.com) wrote when I was little: The Treeshaker’s Worry. The story follows the journey of a bored and lonely little girl who spends her days drawing everything she sees outside of her window, until she discovers Treeshaker, an old, crooked and mustached man who bears the responsibility of setting up the day.

So, we will use this blog to keep you posted on our (hopefully constant and fulfilling, forward and efficient..fingers crossed) progress. Until then,

Sam.